Signal Boost: Bronycon Bookstore · 5:47pm Aug 25th, 2018
HP Lovecraft is one of the best known horror writers of all time. While most people today know him for Cthulhu, he first achieved fame for his iconic character The King in Yellow—an unknowable supernatural horror that can drive men mad with its presence.
Except, Lovecraft didn’t invent The King in Yellow. The King first appeared in a book by Robert Chambers years earlier. After Chambers’ book went public domain, Lovecraft decided he wanted to do his own take on the concept, mashing it up with some of his earlier work.
HP Lovecraft got famous for a really good unlicensed crossover fic.
Ulysses by James Joyce was described by its author as, “Homer’s Odyssey, only in the modern day.” He imported the old story into a new setting, added a dash of his own interpretation for flavor, and a bit of shipping. Honestly I’ve never read it, but a lot of English teachers tried to make me read it, so I assume there’s something there.
I have read the classic sci-fi novel Forever War. Legend holds it was written as a “take that” to Starship Troopers. Apparently, Joe Haldeman thought that Heinlein was a little fascist, so he fixed it.
A fix fic, you might call it.
“It’s fanfiction all the way down.”
I firmly believe that. The first caveman to ever scribble antelope on a cave wall could claim to be an entirely original author, but everyone else was inspired by the people who came before them.
And yet even I find myself saying things like: “Lots of fanfic writers want to be real authors.” Like fanfiction isn’t real? There’s obviously something different—something I know instinctively that keeps driving me to make that mistake.
It’s the production values: the shiny cover, the hardback printing, the cover art, and the editors who got rid of all the spelling errors.
We humans are status obsessed creatures. We make up words to denote how expensive things are, buy crap we don’t need just to show we can afford it, and love collecting shiny things. Fanfic authors can say all they like that their work is just as good, but without that space on the bookstore shelf, the nice cover art, and the proper price tag, it’s hard to believe it. Even for us.
But what if fanfiction could go on a shelf? With the shiny wrap and the good editing and the fancy dedication and the nice barcode on the back-left corner.
Just once.
Introducing the BRONYCON 2019 FANFICTION BOOKSTORE.
This whole thing was Aqua’s idea and he’s explained it in this most excellent blog post, but I’ll quote the highlights.
Part 0: I’m Sorry, You’re Gonna Do What?
No, not me. All of us. We’re gonna open a bookstore. Together, as a fic community, to send off BronyCon with a well-deserved and ego-trip-tastic bang.
Here’s the pitch: for BronyCon 2019, I’m going to spearhead an effort to get us, as a collective group of technicolor horsefiction scribes, a spot in the Merch Hall. ... This booth would be where we open a store selling professionally made prints of our horsefandom work: full-length novels, collated anthologies of short stories, cute little novella booklets, whatever’s fit to put on paper.
It’s a community bookstore in the biggest Bronycon ever, hosting all of the fandom’s best fanfiction polished to a mirror shine.
It’s gonna be great.
You can get the full logistical details from Aquaman’s original post, but I wanted to give a shout-out to any authors who may want to participate but aren’t sure how to get started.
See, I’ve been getting my own fics ready for printing, and this is my first time publishing a real grown-up book. It has a lot of trial and error and I’ve mostly learned by running into the errors. I make mistakes so that you don’t have to!
Please feel free to PM me if you want 1-on-1 help, and over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing blog posts on:
- Finding a good line editor.
- Finding a good cover artist.
- Formatting your manuscript for publication.
- Self publishing.
- And managing publishing costs (books ain’t free).
Needless to say, I’ll be at the event myself. I’m bringing printings of Siren Song, I Forgot I Was There, Around the World in 81 Days, and two anthologies of short stories entitled Thousand Yard Stare (Dark Stories) and Roll Credits (Actingverse).
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But... this means I'll actually need to finish one of my stories.
Ooh, I want The Secret of Ponyville to be a hardcover book so bad.
Also I would offer to signal boost this given the names I know but it's you so you probably know more people than I do.
4925537 Every little bit helps!
"The first caveman to ever scribble antelope on a cave wall could claim to be an entirely original author"
Unless, of course, that was a fan comic of one of Cousin Uglak's thrilling (orally presented) antelope stories. :)
Anyway, a really neat idea!
...And I'm wondering how much of my bigger-than-usual roughed-out Bronycon budget for 2019 (assuming, oh and I so hope it does, everything works out) will go to this.
And whether I might need to mail some boxes back to myself.
(I mean, you know... it depends on what's there, among other things, but just the prospect is tempting...)
Thanks for taking part in the project, and for the signal boost (and for the future blog posts, offer of help, etc.; I probably won't be using them as an author, but I'm glad to see the help there)!
4925544
True enough. I'm definitely dropping this everywhere I know of
I-I don't have anything I want to put in a paperback though.
I can settle for being a really cute Sunset Shimmer booksaleshorse?
4925537
It's not just about how many people you know! If you know someone GaPJaxie doesn't, then it's worth it.
This is the quality GaPJaxie content I'm here for
4925640
Whoops, sorry for missing that. Might have been the excitement. :)
4925640
Curse you!
This is easily the most batshit-insane, ridiculous, overly ambitious thing you've ever posted.
...And I want in.
(Note: still need to think about printing my War and Peace-sized book and a way to make it not an unaffordable dumpster fire of a vanity project.)
Also:
This. So very much this.
I saw "Ulysses" and had an aneurysm.
I really hate that book. I had to read the entire thing in a few weeks for a class once and I learned that I truly can hate a book, despite what my time working at a library beat into me. I can respect the literary and historical significance of the book, but I find that significance doesn't mean good. From start to finish, I found the book simply unpleasant to experience. I see what other people respect about it but even the mention of it hurts my soul.
I'm not an author interested in printing, but as a fimfuc consumer, i am all for the opportunity to own physical copies of the stories I love. I still think my hardcover Fallout Equestria is my favorite and most prized book I own, and i would love to add other pony titles to that collection!